A curious thing happened in the aftermath of President Trump attempting to sign away the past eight years of work on climate and clean energy: The public face of progress didn’t flinch. From north to south and east to west, utilities and businesses and states and cities swore their decarbonization compasses were unswerving; yes, they said, we’re still closing coal plants, and yes, yes!, we’re still building ever more the wind and solar – it just makes sense.

But here’s why all the subsequent commentary reiterating the inevitability of coal’s decline and cheering the unsinkable strength of renewables’ rise was right in facts, but incomplete in message:

Coal is closing. Renewables are rising. But right now, we need to be talking about natural gas.

This map shows coal units that have retired just between 2007 and 2016 – many more have been announced for closure in the near future. U.S. EIA, Generator Monthly

At the same time, renewable resources have been absolutely blowing the wheels off expectations and projections, with costs plummeting and deployment surging. The renewable energy transformation is just that – a power sector transformation – and it certainly appears there’s no going back:

Wind and solar capacity has been growing rapidly since the early 2000s. U.S. EIA

Now when you put these two trajectories together, you end up with an electric power sector that has, in recent years, steadily reduced its carbon dioxide emissions:

Three positive charts, and three tremendous reasons to cheer (which we do a lot, and won’t soon stop – clean energy momentum is real and it’s rolling). The problem is, these charts only capture part of the energy sector story.

…Until we finally realize we’re lost

There are two phases to climate change emissions reductions conversations. In Phase 1, we acknowledge that a problem exists, we recognize we’re a big reason for that problem, and we take action to initiate change. With the exception of just a few of the most powerful people in our government (oh … them), we seem to have Phase 1 pretty well in hand. Cue the stories about the triumphant resilience of our climate resolve.

The trouble is Phase 2.

In Phase 2, we move to specifics. Namely, specifics about what the waypoints are, and by when we need to reach them. This is the conversation that produces glum replies – and it’s the source of those weighty, distraught affairs scattered among the buoyanttakes on the recent executive order – because the truth is:

We know what the waypoints are,

We know by when we need to reach them, and

We know that currently, we’re not on track.

Without a map, we’re left feeling good about the (real and true) broad-brush successes of our trajectory – emissions reductions from the retirement of coal plants; technology and economic improvements accelerating the deployment of renewables – but we have no means by which to measure the adequacy of our decarbonization timeline.

Natural gas plants are located all across the country, and new projects keep getting proposed. U.S. EIA

And all those natural gas plants mean even more gas pipelines. According to project tracking by S&P Global Market Intelligence, an additional 70 million Dth/d of gas pipeline capacity has been proposed to come online by the early 2020s (subscription). That is a lot of gas, and would require the commitment of a lot of investment dollars.

When plants are built, pipelines are laid, and dollars are committed, it becomes incredibly hard to convince regulators to force utilities to let it all go.

Still, that’s what the markets – and the climate – will demand. As a result, ratepayers may be on the hook for generators’ bad bets.

Plotting a course to a better tomorrow

So where to from here? Ultimately, there is far too much at stake for us to simply hope we’re heading down the right path. Instead, we need to be charting our course to the future based on all of the relevant information, not just some of it.